Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.

Buy Used
$4.25
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Crisp, attractive copy. FREE SHIPPING w/AMAZON PRIME!
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See this image

A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother Hardcover – May 3, 2011

4.0 out of 5 stars 152 customer reviews

See all 9 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
Hardcover
"Please retry"
$3.68 $0.01
Audio CD
"Please retry"
$39.99

Best Books of the Month
Best Books of 2016
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for the best books of the year in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
click to open popover

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

New York Times best sellers
Browse the New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books and more. See more

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 376 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Books (May 3, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594487979
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594487972
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (152 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #702,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Related Media

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I must preface this review by admitting I am a Republican and did not vote for Obama nor do I plan on voting for him next election. Still I must commend Scott for a simply amazing book considering how little has been known on Obama's mother and her fascinating life. Scott was able to pull together an incredible amount of information from which to tell write this book. I particularly enjoyed how she was able to win the trust of relatives not normally comfortable with detailing family history and also how even handed and impartial her take on the story was. The writing style itself also really lends itself to the story it told as Scott writes in a very fluid and coherent style which is easy to pick up. There is almost a dreamy quality to the early stories of the Kansas contingent of the Obama family and how education was such an important driver even many decades ago. One small criticism is that in some instances the same people are quoted multiple times saying basically the same thing which gets a bit repetitive. Plus often times the second half of the book seems more geared towards those interested in the history of Indonesian poverty then the actually story of Ann Dunham. It can get quite dense.

As for Stanley Ann Dunham who this book chronicles I don't want to give away the many intriguing elements of her life but will say there is a certain heartbreak in her likely sadness at not being in her son's life for long periods of time. One is left to wonder what their relationship would be like today has she not passed away at 52. One last point, I really enjoyed learning about Indonesia and other exotic locations which play a big role in this really well written book.

Totally recommended no matter your politics as long as you are interested in a fascinating life that nobody can deny had a profound affect on the world and history.
67 Comments 307 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
We heard about Stanley Ann Dunham during Barack Obama's run for President in 2008. We knew that she had
been on foodstamps. We knew that she had been a young single mother in Hawaii in the early 1960s with a black son that she had to support.

By emphasizing this part of his mother's history, Barack Obama assured people that, yes, he understood their economic pain. And yes, his mother had been fatally ill with cancer while fighting with her insurance company not to cut off her coverage.

What we really had little comprehension of during these last few years as her son served as President, was the sophistication and complexity of Ann Dunham's professionnal life as an anthropologist and pioneeer working from the "bottom up" for AID and the Ford Foundation, a real pioneer who played a leading role in creating the whole field of micro-lending in which poor women were lent "seed money" to start their own businesses. "Women," New York Times reporter, Janny Scott, writes, "were playing a critical role in keeping poor households afloat. But Indonesian government policies and programs would not reflect that reality until there were more data to prove it. Officials at Ford wanted to encourage more village-level studies." After looking at a list of well-qualified candidates to do this work in rural villages, they decided on Dunham. "She's a specialist in small scale industries/non-farm employment and would be superb."

Dunham worked for the Ford Foundation for four years and Scott's reporting on her sojourn with that international organization is fascinating. She loved the job but in many ways was much more qualified than the Ivy-educated men who ran Ford's Indonesian office. She was fluent in the national language. They were not.
Read more ›
5 Comments 115 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Janny Scott worked as a journalist for The New York Times. And just before President Obama was elected President in 2008, she wrote a piece for the Times about Stanley Ann Dunham, the about-to-be-elected President's dead mother. I have read Mr. Obama's books and have learned some about his mother. But I noted that very little seems to have been written about this woman who must have had a profound influence upon her son. And now Janny Scott has provided me with so many researched pieces.
This is what she did: she spent years interviewing people who knew the President's mother. And this book is filled with that information, presented in the chronology of Ms. Dunham's life.
However, I would want potential readers to know this: this is not written in the style of a fluid novel because it isn't a novel. Instead Ms. Scott has presented details through the mouths of those she interviewed which include a few members of Mr. Obama's family (we must remember that he has few family members who are still alive) and then dozens of people who knew this remarkable woman as friends and colleagues.
Several chapters are devoted to Ms. Dunham's professional life most of which was spent in Indonesia were she lived, for a while, with her second husband who was from that island-filled country. This is also where the President lived for a while and where his half-sister, Maya, was born and raised.
Ann Dunham (she dropped the Stanley when she moved to Hawaii--her father's name) was a rather usual mother. She was only seventeen when she found herself pregnant with the future president, newly arrived in Hawaii, a student at the University. She married the senior Barack H. Obama, but soon he was off to Harvard. She apparently was unaware that he was already married and a father, his wife back in Kenya.
Read more ›
12 Comments 66 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews